Acts of Love (30 page)

It was a large room with a skylight and tall windows on the far wall. Books covered the other walls, surrounding a wide fireplace beneath a carved wooden mantel. One of the shelves held Constance's collection of plays, supported between two book-ends in the shapes of theater masks, one tragic, one comedic. The room was crowded, with a deep couch and a matching armchair, two long worktables, several easels with paintings propped on them, and a drafting table tilted at an angle, with a high padded stool in front of it. The floor was covered with a southwestern rug, its earth tones repeated in dozens of glazed and unglazed pots that Luke thought were probably Zuni or Navaho, filling tables and shelves along the windows. “Totally different from the rest of the house,” he said. “Almost like traveling to another part of the country.”

“Yes, that's just it.” Her anger at his inspection of her seemed to be gone. “That's exactly what I wanted. Some people go to offices—”

“You go to the southwest.” They smiled together. Luke wandered from easel to easel. “I have all your books,” he said casually, and from the corner of his eye saw the surprise on her face. “At least, I have twelve of them. The bookstore clerk thought that was the whole collection. I found them extraordinary, quite satisfactorily haunting.”

“Satisfactorily haunting?”

“It's always satisfying to be haunted by something, don't you think? There's so much that's ordinary all around us, and it blurs into other ordinary things and then it's gone, as it should be. Your paintings keep coming back to me; they appear at odd moments in the middle of whatever I'm doing. They're very fine.”

“Thank you. That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about them. I feel that way about Constance. She refuses to disappear.”

“And she won't, for either of us, because we're holding on to her. I've always felt that one of our deepest fears is that what is beautiful and special will slip away because we haven't tried hard enough, or haven't been able, to hold on to it.”

Jessica gave him a quick look, wondering if he were trying to be clever. He had gazed at her often enough to make her uncomfortable and angry, but not once had he spoken about the way she looked. And when she had opened the door the day before, and they had seen each other for the first time, he had not even seemed surprised. It was as if he had known what to expect. But he could not have known. Robert had told her about Luke's first trip to the island, so short it made no sense: he had arrived after midnight, Robert had said, and he had left early the next morning, with no time to see anyone.

It was much more likely that when she opened her door to him he was the Luke Cameron she had heard about so often: a man who masked his emotions and kept his thoughts to himself.

Or when he rang her doorbell he was too wet and cold to think of anything but getting dry.

He was examining the paintings on her easels with an absorbed, concentrated look and it pleased her that a quick onceover was not enough for him. He studied the world he lived in; he did not take it for granted or skim with indifferent eyes.

Then why had he said nothing about her looks? Why didn't his face show surprise and revulsion, as she was sure everyone's would the minute she showed herself in places where she was known? For all of yesterday, that wonderful day, they had talked and talked, and not once had his face betrayed anything but interest in their conversation and pleasure at being there.

If it had, she would not have invited him to ride this morning.

“They're like dreams,” Luke said, standing before the last easel. “That was what I thought when I first saw them. Nothing is quite what it seems.” He glanced at her. “A lot of things are like that. And people, as well.” Before she could respond, he looked at his watch. “Should we be checking the oven?”

“Oh, Lord, I forgot.”

“It's been just twenty minutes.”

She was hurrying, furious at her clumsiness as her leg swung out with each step, and she knew Luke was just behind her. In the kitchen, she pulled down the oven door. “Oh, it's fine.”

“I'll carry that if you can get the coffee,” he said.

“You'll need a pot holder. In that drawer.”

The large, irregular stones of the terrace, shading from buff to gray, shone almost white in the sunlight and long ripples in the bay glinted as they moved lazily toward the sliver of beach and Jessica's garden. Jessica had set the table in the speckled shade of a mimosa tree beside a small, slate-topped serving cart where Luke set the heavy black pan beside a serving knife and spoon. “I haven't had apple pancake for a long time,” he said, sitting opposite Jessica. He watched her cut a wide wedge and put it on his plate, and the warm scent of apples and cinnamon rose in the sunlit air. “This is wonderful,” he said, tasting it. “The cinnamon is different. Where is it from?”

“China. Most people wouldn't notice.”

“It's spicier, somehow. More complex than the kind we usually get. Do you really find this on Lopez? Or Friday Harbor?”

“No, I send for it. A small spice house in Wisconsin called Penzey's, where they grind it every week. I have a long list of things I send for; it's the only way I can shop for everything, since I don't leave the island.”

“Except to go to Seattle.”

“No, I—” Her fork suspended, she met his eyes in a startled look.

Luke put down his fork and Jessica saw his eyes change, as if he were taking a mental breath and plunging into a place he knew would be difficult. “You wrote Constance that you signed books for schoolchildren at Elliott Bay bookstore.”

“You have an advantage over me,” she said coldly. “You promised me an explanation.”

“Yes, I owe you that.” He looked out, at a small flat-topped island at the entrance to the bay and, beyond it, Mount Baker, snowcapped and serene, dominating the horizon. “The day I heard that Constance had died, I went to Italy. I arranged for her funeral, put her villa on the market, and then went through her rooms, following the directions in her will when there were any, otherwise making my own decisions on what to keep and what to give away. She seemed to be everywhere, you know; her fragrance followed me, her voice stayed with me . . . it was almost as if I were visiting and soon we'd have a quiet dinner—” His voice caught. As the silence stretched out, he deliberately took a bite of apple pancake, then another and another, and Jessica knew he was warding off ghosts. No, not ghosts, she thought; only the pain of knowing that a phantom is all we have left of someone so deeply loved.

She felt close to Luke now, relaxed and ready to listen. She ate some of her own pancake and, suddenly realizing how hungry she was, finished what was on her plate. Without asking, she served Luke another piece and took one for herself.

“Thank you,” Luke said, and she knew he was thanking her mostly for listening. “The box of your letters was in the library, beside her favorite chair. I'd seen it on other visits and thought it was simply decorative, but when I opened it . . . well, I've told you about seeing your letters and reading one or two from curiosity. I read a few more, I think, and then the telephone rang, and it was a woman in New York to whom I'd once been married.”

Jessica saw her own surprise mirrored on Luke's face, and she knew he had not expected to say that. But then he gave a small nod, as if acknowledging that this was what he wanted to do, and he settled back in his chair and told her the story of that entire week in Italy and his return to New York. The hum of bees and the sweet trills of birds wove through his deep voice, and Jessica knew that he was responding, as she always did, to the isolation of this small space, seeming entire unto itself as it looked across the open water, leaving the islands and the continent behind.

“I haven't told you about Claudia.” Briefly he told her about his marriage and the swath that Claudia still cut through his life. “What I found myself doing was comparing Claudia to you. Not fair to Claudia, of course, but it became so obvious that I couldn't avoid it. She's a woman who is incapable of shaping a life for herself, of finding meaning and purpose in her days. And you'd built a new life, almost from nothing. I didn't understand why you'd had to do it—nothing in your letters said exactly why the train crash forced you to abandon everything—but I knew you'd done it, and evidently without leaning on others. So while Claudia was demanding that I create a purpose and a direction for her, you'd had two careers, two ways of life, two purposes, two directions, and you'd done it by yourself. I didn't have to understand it to know how difficult that must have been, and I admired you enormously for it I read a magazine interview you'd given, where you said you'd thought about other ways of living and you had hobbies, especially painting, that gave you great pleasure, but then you said, ‘Nothing makes me feel fully alive and in touch with myself as the theater does. I think if I left it I would never feel whole again.' The reason I remember every word of that is because it's exactly the way I feel. So I think you must have gone through hell to get where you are.” He paused, contemplating her. “And I think I'm beginning to understand it.”

Jessica put her hands on the edge of the table as if to push back her chair and flee. “I don't want your admiration if it comes attached to a comparison with your wife—”

“Ex-wife.”

“I don't want to be compared to her, or to anyone else. I don't want to be reminded, over and over, of what I was and what I said, as if you're rubbing my nose in the past.”

“I would never—”

“I just want to be left alone! I don't want to think about what's gone; I don't want to be dragged into places I've turned my back on. I don't want questions or advice. Or pity.”

“I'm not pitying you. I'm not dragging you anywhere. I'm trying to tell you what your letters meant to me. And I haven't told you the most important reason I kept reading them.” He was gazing outward again, watching a ship appear in the distance, hazily outlined, as if it were a mirage. “I found myself looking forward to coming home to you. To your letters, of course, but that meant to your voice and your descriptions of people and your comments on the theater. And you brought Constance closer, but that wasn't the main thing. The main attraction was you.” He turned back to her. “Your companionship.”

Jessica sat very still. He had caught her unawares again, and this time his words flowed into her, warming her. But when he paused, a sneer within her said,
Pretty dramatic stuff, but drama is easy, from a distance. Now that he's seen me . . .
And that sent her upright, no longer relaxed. “That was a fantasy,” she said flatly. “You never had my companionship. And you don't know me, no matter how many letters you've read.”

“I know that. It's the reason I'm here. I don't like open-ended mysteries; I need answers and conclusions.”

“That's because you're used to two acts and a final curtain.”

“It's because I don't wear blinders,” he snapped. “It's because I believe in understanding. Theater isn't all illusion; you of all people would know that the best of it tells the truth.” He thought back. “A friend of mine, a director named Zelda Fichhandler, said something a long time ago; you know it because you quoted it in one of your letters. She said, ‘Theater exposes our internal feelings so we can see them instead of having them just be fluttering around inside us.' You knew that it meant exposing feelings and
facing
them; you knew it and you believed it and I'll bet you still do.”

“Constance told me you confuse theater and life,” Jessica said angrily. “You thought your marriage should be like the one in a play you were directing and when it wasn't—” She caught herself. “I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said that.”

“It seems my grandmother told you far more about me than she told me about you.” His voice was light, but Jessica saw that he was surprised and hurt. “I'm sorry she told you that; it was very personal.”

“So were my letters,” she shot back.

“Yes, and I was prying and I apologize. But now that I've read them it doesn't make sense to keep arguing that point.”

“It does as long as you keep quoting them. You have no right to throw my words at me, as if you're trying to force me to explain them or retract them. . . .”

“You're right, I apologize again. It seems I have a lot to be sorry for. But you see, I don't understand you. How you could write one thing—”

“You don't have to understand me. Who asked you to?”

“I want to.
I want to.
That's reason enough.”

“Not for me.” She stood up and reached for her cane. “I think you'd better go; we don't have anything more to talk about.”

“We have Jessica Fontaine to talk about.”

“Then you'll talk to yourself. I have no intention of indulging you.”

She was at the French doors, the dog padding beside her, when Luke said, “Jessica. Please,” and she stopped, her back to him. “I'm not trying to force you to do anything. I doubt that I could, in any event. But I want to know you better and I'm willing to meet you halfway on that. In fact, I have already; I've been honest with you in everything.”

She wheeled about. “Honest? You've lived a lie since the minute I opened my door to you.”

“That's not true.”

“Oh, yes, you're the expert on truth, aren't you? But you only use the parts of it that suit you. What are you really here for?”

“For Christ's sake.” He was standing now and they faced each other across the terrace. “How many times do I have to say that I want to know you, who you are now—”

“Then how can you ignore what you see?
Damn it, look at me!
This
is what I am now! Why do you ignore it? You treat me like a child, or a fool, sitting here for hours and talking about the theater, about Constance, about New York, as if you were just passing by and stopped in to chat and found everything exactly as you expected it. Is that truth, to you? Or honesty? Do you expect me to believe that it is?”